


Teach Me How to Sing

by WithBroomBefore



Series: Exhibitions [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Broadway, Established Relationship, Fluff, Gen, M/M, Music, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 23:15:21
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,811
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10932045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WithBroomBefore/pseuds/WithBroomBefore
Summary: Is Leo seriously doingCats? he texted Phichit, appalled.





	Teach Me How to Sing

“I have no idea,” Yuri said. “Pick something for me?”

Otabek snorted. “Yeah, right. You haven’t let anyone near your exhibition music since you were fifteen.” It was Tuesday, so he was cooking, and it was the least stressful season, so it was something complicated. There was a whole raw fish dripping juices onto a plate.

Yuri carefully relaxed from his split and shrugged. “They’ve also been about you since I was fifteen, one way or another.”

There was an odd little silence. When he scrambled up, Otabek had stopped chopping potatoes and was looking at him, mouth curling up at the corners. “Really?”

Yuri pulled the kitchen stool over so he could rest his elbows on the counter and watch. “In a roundabout way, some of them, but yeah.” He ticked them off. “I wouldn’t be friends with JJ without you, so that’s last year.”

Otabek sighed. “You had to bring it up, didn’t you. It’s been out of my head for a whole week now; I thought I was free.”

Yuri grimaced. “Sorry.” The primary consequence of the previous year’s routines had been that the entire figure skating community would have ‘the Theme of King JJ’ stuck in its collective brain for the rest of eternity. Yuri was entirely certain that it had been worth it, but there were mixed opinions on that point. “Anyway,” he went on, “Before that was Leo’s - _thing_ , then Disney, which was about you to an extent that was blindingly obvious.”

“I did figure that one out,” Otabek said drily.

“The angry teen ones were less about you and more about my, you know, adolescent rage,” Yuri admitted, “but did you think ‘Welcome to the Madness’ was anything but showing off off for my new best friend?”

Otabek, who had started on the potatoes again, laughed. “‘Welcome to the Madness’ will never not be funny.” He considered. “It was not without its share of adolescent rage as well, though.”

“Shut up, it was amazing.”

“It can be both.”

“Fair.”

“I won’t pick for you,” Otabek said, when the fish had been consumed. They had reversed position; he was on the stool while Yuri washed the dishes. “I’ll watch things with you until you find something, though.”

Yuri twisted round to look at him. “Is this just so you can show me musicals? Have you been in league with Phichit from the beginning?”

“Of course not, that would be ridiculous.” The tone was a touch too deadpan. Yuri flicked suds over his shoulder without looking back. “It’s merely a fortunate coincidence. We could start with Sweeney Todd so you can see what I’m doing.”

“This is revenge for JJ,” Yuri realized. The silence behind him had a deeply satisfied note to it. “I suppose it is only fair.”

 _Sweeney Todd_ was unexpectedly excellent. “You didn’t tell me that _Angela Lansbury ate people_ ,” he said, delighted.

“I’m not sure she does,” Otabek demurred, “just cooks them. I don’t think she ever eats the pie onstage.”

“Nitpicker,” Yuri said. He was curled against Otabek on one side with Sasha stretched warm over his toes on the other, and he was immensely comfortable. “Which song are you doing, then?”

“‘Johanna.’ The first one, not the creepy judge reprise.”

Yuri sighed. “Not a cannibalism one, then.” He yawned and let his head drop onto Otabek’s shoulder. “Pity.”

“Mm,” Otabek agreed, resting his cheek against Yuri’s hair. They should probably go to bed properly, Yuri thought, but Sasha was purring and it would be rude to disturb her. It wouldn’t hurt to stay on the couch for a few minutes.

* * *

“Stiff, old man?” he said at the rink the next morning.

Otabek dropped out of his stretch and groaned. “This is your fault and I hate you,” he observed.

“It is not.” Yuri held onto his toes for an extra ten seconds, gritting his teeth. “Don’t hate me for our shared poor life decisions, hate me because I’m younger and better than you.”

“You’re not better than me,” Otabek pointed out amiably, which at this point was true, “but I’m happy to resent your youth and flexibility.” He let Yuri pull him to his feet. “Though it does make it more satisfying when I beat you.”

Yuri leaned in and kissed him swiftly, smiling into it. “Just you try.” It was something he might consider admitting someday, that he would not have been happy staying in the lead as Victor always had. It wasn’t why he loved Otabek, but it was part of it, just as it was part of his fondness for Katsuki and his utterly unaffectionate meaningless interactions with JJ. At eleven, he had wanted nothing but what Victor had; at twenty-two, he was rather surprised to find that he preferred this.

* * *

The first teaser went out soon after. _Is Leo seriously doing_ Cats? he texted Phichit, appalled. To Otabek, he said, “Even I know that shows terrible taste.”

“It does,” Otabek agreed, replaying the clip in fascinated horror: thirty seconds, plenty of time to make it clear that Leo was definitely singing along. “It’s certainly memorable.”

There was a beat. “Oh my god,” Yuri said, “did you just - you did.” Otabek’s mouth twitched, but he did not answer. “I’m leaving you,” Yuri said. “I can’t be seen with a man who makes _Cats_ puns. This is the line.”

Phichit’s response diverted him. _I’m as horrified as you are_ , it read, _but I don’t think he is really. We’re doing teasers from different shows because we couldn’t pick just one song each._

 _We_ turned out to be Leo, Phichit, and Guang-hong, which Yuri supposed he could have guessed. ‘Memory’ was met by ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ (Phichit) and ‘On the Steps of the Palace’ (Guang-hong). By the time the season’s placements were announced, they had also posted ‘Don’t Tell Mama,’ ‘I Believe,’ and ‘The Kite,’ respectively. “Guang-hong has better taste than the others,” Otabek observed. “ _Charlie Brown_ is more obscure than I would have expected.”

The downside, apart from the horror that was Leo’s musical aesthetic, was that Otabek made him watch all of them. “You need exposure to the genre,” he said reasonably. “How else will you find something you like?”

“Based on these, I won’t,” Yuri said. “Maybe you have to be raised on them to appreciate it.” He didn’t hate _Into the Woods_ , but there wasn’t anything in it that tugged at him.

He was concentrating on his competitive routines, anyway; they both were. It wasn’t Otabek’s last season, but it was getting close, and they both wanted to push their limits for it. The lack of JJ didn’t mean that they were home free; Phichit was planning to retire after the winter, but he had beaten Yuri in one of the qualifiers the previous year. The new Irish kid (“Ennis. And it’s his third season in Seniors,” Otabek said) was better than he had any right to be, and there was a sixteen-year-old from Turkey whose Junior run had been frankly alarming. Yuri was not worried, but he also wasn’t taking any time off.

Otabek eventually spent a Saturday working through his exhibition routine. “Can I see it?” Yuri demanded, the following week. It was beautiful, as Otabek’s always were; it was also the first time that Yuri had really listened to the words. “‘Buried sweetly in my yellow hair,’ huh?” he said.

Otabek shrugged. “After _Hercules_ , you really have no higher ground here.”

“I know,” Yuri said serenely, because _Hercules_ had worked splendidly and he had no regrets. “I like it.”

He went back to the soundtrack the next day. Lilia raised an eyebrow at him when he brought her ‘Green Finch and and Linnet Bird,’ but it was more surprise than objection. This pleased Yuri not a little - if he could still startle her, of all people, then there must be something to it. “Otabek is doing ‘Johanna,’” he said, by way of explanation, and it seemed sufficient.

He had meant it to be merely a match for Otabek’s choice, having no better ideas, but the words started to get to him. It was a song about cages, and choosing to survive in them. He thought again about who Victor had been at his age, who he had planned to be. They had never talked about it, not explicitly. Even so, even at fifteen, he had been aware of Victor’s unhappiness. Whether it had gotten worse or whether he just hadn’t seen it before, Yuri was never sure. Even then, he had assumed it to be part of the life that was planned out for him. He was going to be the best, whatever costs came with it. He remembered promising Lilia his body and soul, ridiculously, with utter certainty.

Perhaps he would have been better, matched Victor’s streak, set more records (that nobody, himself included, had yet touched his _Agape_ score was at once satisfying and maddening, as was the fact that he had come within a fraction of Katsuki’s _Eros_ score four times in the past seven years). Perhaps the minutes spent training instead of on Skype or planes to Almaty and Hasetsu would have added up until neither Otabek nor JJ could have kept up with him. _Safer in cages, singing when you’re told._ He could have done it, because Victor had done it and he had beaten Victor’s record at fifteen.

He ran the piece in costume for the first time just before the season started. It had turned into a medley of emotion, a lament for who Victor had been and who Yuri could have become transitioning into joy that he had not. He finished with arms spread wide, feathers settling back into place (there was no point turning subtle now). “Are you crying?” he asked, when he had dropped his hands and skated to the rail.

“You didn’t tell me what you were doing,” Otabek said. There was a question in his eyes that Yuri was not sure how to answer; he didn’t know how to put words to what the piece had become. Otabek settled for, “It’s completely ridiculous how good you are.”

“This one gets me no points,” Yuri said, and they were back on safe ground. Off the ice and out of costume, he wrapped his arms firmly around Otabek and hung on hard for a minute. He might not be able to talk about it, but he knew full well how Otabek fit into the story.

* * *

Yuri was dragged to breakfast with the whole trifecta after Skate America. “I am _so glad_ you thought better of _Cats_ ,” he informed Leo.

“Yes,” Phichit agreed, “ _Rent_ is much better.”

Yuri could honestly not tell whether he was being sarcastic or not. “I liked yours,” he said to Guang Hong, who blushed under his freckles. “Otabek made me watch _Into the Woods_ , so I actually got it.” He looked at Phichit. “Apparently we’re doing Gilbert and Sullivan when there’s time, for which I blame you.”

“I regret nothing,” Phichit declared. “Overall, a very solid selection. A great improvement over last year.”

“Oh, I liked ‘The Theme of King JJ,’” Leo said. Beside him, Guang Hong made an aborted gesture of dismay.

There was a terrible glitter in Phichit’s eyes. “We had rules, Leo,” he said, very calmly. “Can you tell me what the rules were?”

Leo quailed. Guang Hong recited meekly, “We don’t talk about the song. When we talk about the song, it gets into our brains. When the song gets into our brains, it feeds on our reason, leaving only madness.”

Phichit beamed at him. “You are so correct!”

* * *

“We have to do _Wicked_ now, too, because of Minami,” Otabek informed him, during their overlapping time home before the final. “And _Superstar_ , though probably not together. The tone is rather different.” Yuri had seen the videos; Seung-gil’s glower had made for an extremely effective Judas.

Overall, the commitment to the theme had been entirely respectable. “You’re _retired_ ,” Yuri shouted at Victor. To Otabek, he said, “Turn it down, he doesn’t need encouragement.” Otabek complied, but he also replayed the video. He had insisted that they view it properly, so it was on the television rather than a phone screen.

“We felt left out!” Victor said in his ear. “And Chris likes musicals.”

“Of course he does,” Yuri said. “Since when do you two do pair skates?”

“Since now,” Victor said. “The dynamic was perfect, and Yuri wanted to do his own.”

On screen, he watched Chris clasp both hands to his chest. His lips were moving. “Did you have to make it a sing-along, too?”

“Yes,” Victor told him happily, and demonstrated. “‘ _Agonyyy, far more painful than_ -’”

“ _Oh my God_ ,” Yuri said, and hung up.

Katsuki posted his the next day. “If he wanted to shame us all, well done,” Otabek said. “There’s no film of _Hamilton_ yet, but I’ve got the soundtrack if you want context.”

Yuri nodded absently. _‘Love doesn’t discriminate,’_ came the words, and retired or not, Katsuki still had better step sequences than anyone still on the ice. The build of the song carried him into the first jump: _‘I am the one thing in life I can control.’_ There was a lump in Yuri’s throat.

“Hey.” Otabek shoved a shoulder against his, warm and solid. “You okay?”

Yuri swallowed. “Yeah. I just - he was the first person I really cared about beating. I’d almost forgotten.” He scrubbed the back of one hand across his cheeks and leaned into Otabek. “He’s just so _good_.”

“He is,” Otabek agreed, eyes on the screen.

* * *

“JJ says good luck,” Phichit called, panning his phone around the room.

There was a chorus of _thank you_ s; Otabek looked up from tying his skates to wave and ask, “How’s Yanglet One?”

“Oh god.” JJ’s voice sounded haunted even through the tiny speaker. “She’s already smarter than me. And awake _all the time_.”

Yuri was stretching in the corner, forehead pressed against his knees. He yelled, “Never give up, even if night should fall,” into them.

“Goddammit, Plisetsky.”

“Always do your best,” Otabek told the phone gravely.

Phichit lowered it and said sternly, “Otabek Altin, I expected better from you.”

Yuri cackled into his knees.

* * *

A few days later, bronze at his throat and champagne in his hand, Yuri considered the consequences of his actions with some glee. It was entirely possible that there would be an annual sing-along for the foreseeable future, and he was all right with that. This year it was Otabek, Minami, and the Irish kid, who had quite good voices, and Mila and Katsuki, who had great enthusiasm. Phichit seemed to have accepted his lot in life; he was filming with one hand and conducting with the other.

“Are you satisfied?” Victor wanted to know, appearing beside him.

Yuri tilted his head and regarded the group. “You know, I am. Very much so.”

When he glanced sideways and up, Victor was smiling. “It’s not that long ago that you’d have sulked all night about third.”

Yuri shrugged. “I wobbled. It happens. Phichit deserved the silver, this time.”

“That he does,” Victor agreed. “And your boy keeps you from getting cocky. It’s good for you.”

“I’ll get him by Worlds,” Yuri said, automatically. After a moment to appreciate the chorus, he added, “I’m glad you two made it.”

“Yuri wanted to, for Phichit’s last one,” Victor said. He smiled. “We’ll bring Princess next year. She keeps asking about you.”

“We’ll be there in the spring,” Yuri said. “I haven’t the faintest idea what to do next season.”

“You’ve got time.” The song had wound down; Phichit was waxing nostalgic and making the rounds for selfies. “I liked your exhibition program.” Yuri looked up, startled. Victor was watching Katsuki.

“Blame Otabek for introducing me to _Sweeney Todd_ ,” Yuri said, after a moment.

“I expected nothing else,” Victor said. He turned his head to meet Yuri’s eyes for the first time in the conversation. “I blame you for the interpretation, though.”

Yuri could think of nothing to say to that. Then the others were upon them and the moment was gone. Katsuki caught Victor’s hands and tugged him towards the dance floor. Phichit said, “Yuri! I haven’t gotten one with you yet!”

“You have,” Yuri felt compelled to remind him. “Several.”

“Yes, but none _now_ ,” Phichit explained. Obviously.

He was gone again in a moment, descending on Cialdini and the bar in a whirl of glittery eyeshadow. Otabek took his place. “Did he post the video?” Yuri asked.

Otabek nodded. “And sent it to JJ. Ennis has promised to carry on the tradition; I hope you’re happy.”

“I suppose he can stay, then,” Yuri allowed.

“The willingness to sing ‘The Theme of King JJ’ in public is indeed what makes a figure skater,” Otabek said dryly.

Yuri grinned. “It is now.”

**Author's Note:**

> Yuri Plisetsky: 'Green Finch and Linnet Bird,' _Sweeney Todd_  
>  Otabek: 'Johanna,' _Sweeney Todd_  
>  Phichit, teasers: 'I Believe,' _The Book of Mormon_ , and 'I Could Have Danced All Night,' _My Fair Lady_  
>  Phichit, final: 'Oh, Better Far to Live and Die,' _The Pirates of Penzance_  
>  Leo, teasers: 'Memory,' _Cats_ , and 'Don't Tell Mama,' _Cabaret_  
>  Leo, final: 'Out Tonight,' _Rent_  
>  Guang Hong, teasers: 'On the Steps of the Palace,' _Into the Woods_ , and 'The Kite,' _You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown_  
>  Guang Hong, final: 'Giants in the Sky,' _Into the Woods_  
>  Minami: 'Popular,' _Wicked_  
>  Seung-gil: 'Heaven on Their Minds,' _Jesus Christ Superstar_  
>  Victor and Chris: 'Agony,' _Into the Woods_  
>  Yuri Katsuki: 'Wait for It,' _Hamilton_


End file.
